After seeing the film John Carter, which is based on this book, I decided to read the book again. It’s been quite a long time and many books ago so I was curious. After the first number of chapters already I was aware that ‘based on’ in this case should be taken very lightly. Yes, there is a John Carter and yes, he goes to Mars or Barsoom. Most of the characters are there, like Dejah Thoris, Sola and Tars Tarkas. Most of the adventures and locations however were changed or entirely discarded. This is quite a lot for a 140 page book.

Again I found the book to be better than the film. So far this has never been different (only with Lord of the Rings I can say that the films equal the books in many places but still there the books are the best).

Edgar Rice Burroughs did an outstanding job in creating the people and conditions on Mars, considering he wrote the book in 1917. With the knowledge of the red planet from those days he had a lot of things quite right, which is why I give it that 5th star. Of course now we have the Curiosity Rover, but that does not take anything away from the brilliance of this book. I can highly recommend it.